AWESOME-tober-fest 2017: The Real Ghostbusters S1E11 – Citizen Ghost

So last time I reviewed J Michael Straczynski’s season 1 episode “Take Two”. It was a super meta episode about Hollywood making a movie about the cartoon Ghostbusters that included actual footage from the Ghostbusters movie. Next up is another super meta episode by Straczynski involving the cartoon Ghostbusters and the aftermath of the actual events in the first movie.

Season 1 – Episode 11. Citizen Ghost. I wanted to watch this episode because, as I alluded to, it’s supposed to be a direct sequel to the original 1984 movie.

Peter is interviewed by a reporter for a news story. Peter tells the story about how Slimer came to be the mascot of the Ghostbusters. This involves flashing back to immediately after the first movie fight against Gozer.

So we flash back. Gozer has been defeated, but the GBHQ is still destroyed from when Walter Peck had shut down the containment grid and the ghosts escaped. You see the holes created by the escaping ghosts.

We see the Ghostbusters are still in their all gray movie suits. Egon mentions that they need to destroy these suits due to all the ectoplasmic radiation they absorbed in their fight with Gozer.

Janine announces that luckily right before their fight with Gozer they got delivery of their brand new uniforms. We see the guys pull out their new, more colorful, cartoon versions of the Ghostbusters suits. I love that already this cartoon is explaining why the cartoon’s suits are different than the movie.

Peter is in charge of destroying the irradiated uniforms. He kicks the box aside and completely forgets about it. The box slides right up next to the new containment unit and starts absorbing some ectoplasmic radiation that happens to be leaking from it.

The irradiated suits absorb so much ectoplasmic energy that they start glowing and get up and walk out of the box!

The suits generate ghostly versions of the Ghostbusters that shoot ectoplasm out of their proton packs. The fellas must fight their ectoplasmic doppelgangers with the help of Slimer who, instead of escaping with the other ghosts during the movie sequence, decided to stick around the headquarters with the guys. Slimer ultimately helps defeat the spectral Ghostbusters.

This is a fun episode that attempts to explain the several differences between the movie and the cartoon. And they are pretty good explanations. I liked this episode quite a bit. I’m surprised this wasn’t used as the very first episode right out of the gate.